LAIV uDDC Arrived

I should say I’m a fan of what LAiV is doing as a company and am rooting for them to succeed, and I’m asking about the clock purely out of curiosity. The fact that the OP realized significant improvements (as did I when I added an Iris to my system) indicates whatever clock they’re using in their DDC must be at least very good, but it’d still be nice to know more. I saw their DAC uses dual Crystek CCHD-957 clock chips that seem to be highly regarded so maybe that’s what they use in their DDC as well although I have zero idea how it compares to the excellent OCXO in the T2 — that’d be interesting to know. In any event I’m really glad you’re getting significant improvements with it because that’s all that matters. I too was surprised at the level of improvement from a DDC — very cost-effective upgrade, and in my case it was like making a significant DAC upgrade on the relative cheap. Anyway…

Noting further sonic improvements on days 2 and 3. Something interesting, My Bluesound Node 2i is receiving more benefit from the DDC than my Innuos Zen MK 3. May be tied to the Node is running off Coax and the Innuos is USB. Not sure if that matters but it’s consistently happening. I’ve noticed in the past the  2 units always provided a different presentation (soundstage width, layering and depth) but it’s really noticeable with the LAIV UDDC in line. The Node is much more 3D sounding. Cool stuff!!!!! 

With USB, which is asynchronous, the clock in the DAC is the controlling clock.

With Coax, generally, the connection is synchronous, and the upstream clock is the boss clock.

Whether asynchronous or synchronous, both the clock in the DAC and any upstream clocks are all in play. It's a handshake affair. It's all a matter of which clock dictates the tempo to the other(s).

Two things I don't get. One, not using I2S, so many reviews stating I2S superior to other inputs with the Terminator. Two, not using with Denafrips DDC, specifically Hermes or Gaia, again many reviews stating great synergy with these. With I2S you can run either dac internal clock (async) or DDC clock (sync), both Hermes and Gaia have superior OXCO clocks and power supplies for these clocks.

I would love to see a shootout between the Laiv and one or more of the Denafrips DDC models. Bonus points for adding the Musician Audio Phoenix and Leo which seem all but identical to the Denafrips counterparts.